Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

The Mirror of Relationship

Ommen, Holland2nd Public Talk 3rd August, 1937

Conflict invariably must arise when there is a static centre within one, and about one there are changing values. This static centre must be in battle with the living quality of life.

Change implies that there is nothing permanent to which the mind can attach itself, but it constantly desires to cling to some form of security. The form of attachment is undergoing a constant change, and this change is considered progress, but attachment still continues.

Now this change implies that there can be no personal centre which is accumulating, storing up memories, as safeguards and virtues; no centre which is constantly gathering to itself experiences, lessons for the future. Though intellectually we may grasp this, emotionally each one clings to a personal, static centre, identifying himself with it. In reality there is no centre as the "I" with its permanent qualities. We must understand this integrally, not merely intellectually, if we are to alter fundamentally our relationship with our neighbour, which is based on ignorance, fear, wants.

Now do we, each one of us, think that this centre, from which most of our action takes place, do we think that this centre is impermanent?

What does thinking mean to you? Are you merely stimulated by my word-picture, by an explanation which you will examine intellectually at your leisure and make into a pattern, into a principle to be followed and to be lived? Does such a method bring about an integral living? Mere explanation of suffering does not cause it to disappear, nor following a principle or a pattern, but what does destroy it is integral thought and emotion.

If you are not suffering, then the word-picture of another about suffering, his explanation concerning it, may for the moment be stimu- lating and might make you think that you should suffer. But such suffering has no significance.

There are two ways of thinking. One is through mere intellectual stimulation, without any emotional content; but when the emotions are deeply stirred, there is an integral thought process which is not superficial, intellectual. This integral thought-emotion alone can bring about lasting comprehension and action.

If what I am saying acts merely as a stimulation, then there arises the question of how to apply it to your daily life with its pains and conflicts. The how, the method, becomes all important only when explanations and stimulations are urging you to a particular action. The how, the method, ceases to be important only when you are aware, integrally.

When the mind reveals to itself its own efforts of fears and wants, then there arises integral awareness of its own impermanency which alone can set the mind free from its binding labours. Unless this is taking place, all stimulation becomes further bondage.

All artificially cultivated qualities divide: all intellectual cultivation of morality, ethics, is cruel, born of fear, only creating further resistance of man against man.

The quality of resistance is ignorance. To be acquainted with many intellectual theories is not freedom from ignorance. A man who is not integrally aware of the process of his own mind is ignorant.

To free thought from acquisitiveness, through discipline, through will, is not a release from ignorance, for it is still held in the conflict of opposites. When thought integrally perceives that the effort to rid itself of acquisitiveness is also part of acquisitiveness, then there is a beginning of enlightenment.

Whatever effort the mind makes to rid itself of certain qualities, it is still caught up in ignorance; but when the mind discerns that all effort it makes to free itself is still within the process of ignorance, then there is a possibility of breaking through the vicious circle of ignorance.

The will of satisfaction breaks up the mind into many parts, each in conflict with the other, and this will cannot be destroyed by a superior will, which is but another form of the will of satisfaction. This circle of ignorance breaks, as it were, from within only when the mind ceases to be acquisitive.

The will of satisfaction destroys love.

Questioner: How are we to distinguish between revelation, which is true thought, and experience? To me, experience, because of our untruthful methods of living, becomes limited and so is not pure revelation. They should be one. Questioner: You mean experience is a memory, a memory of something done?

Krishnamurti: Experience may further condition thought or it may release it from limitations. We experience according to our conditioning, but that conditioning may be broken through, which may give to one's whole being an integral freedom. Morality, which should be spontaneous, has been made to follow a pattern, a principle which becomes right or wrong according to the beliefs that one holds. To alter this pattern some resort to violence, hoping to create a "true" pattern, and others turn to law to reshape it. Doth hope to create "right" morality through force and conformity. But such enforcement is no longer morality.

Violence in some form is considered as a necessary means to a pacific end. We do not see that the end is controlled and shaped by the means we employ.

Truth is an experience disassociated with the past. The attachment to the past with its memories, traditions, is the continuance of a static centre which prevents the experience of truth.

When the mind is not burdened with belief, with want, with attachment, when it is creatively empty, then there is a possibility of experiencing reality.